"Welcome to the first of ITU’s Measuring Digital Development series of statistical and analytical publications that replace the annual Measuring the Information Society Report. Facts and figures 2019 offers a snapshot of the most important ICT indicators, including estimates for the current year.
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Latest figures show that while Internet use continues to spread, the digital gender gap is also growing. More effective action is urgently needed to address a range of barriers – cultural, financial and skills-related – that are impeding Internet uptake, especially among women." (Foreword)
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"Convergence of services usually affects the quality and price of services offered by providers. However, this has not been the case in Romania yet. People benefit from a very competitive market and enjoy fairly cheap services, but the implications of convergence on the content made available to con
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sumers are less beneficial for citizens. If three major companies start controlling both the infrastructure and the media content, the production of good quality journalism is likely to be affected and tastes and ideas could be shaped in unexpected ways. If these companies establish ties with the political elites as well and start endorsing certain ideologies, they can start having an unwarranted impact on society. Although these concerns are now hypothetical, they are grounded in practices that could be observed already for years in Romania. Social media is becoming increasingly influential as a source of information, with more than two-thirds of Romanians getting their news from Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms. Recent debates surrounding fake news have prompted calls for regulation of the online media in a similar way broadcast activities have been regulated for decades. Civil society organizations have been critical of such initiatives, fearing that they could pave the way to the reintroduction of censorship disguised as user protection." (Page 4)
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"By mid-2018, there were 442 million unique mobile subscribers across Latin America and the Caribbean, accounting for 68% of the population. The region is characterised by varying levels of mobile subscriber penetration. A number of countries (such as Chile, Uruguay and Argentina) are approaching sa
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turation of the total addressable market, while others (including Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua) still exhibit relatively low levels of penetration. Despite slowing mobile subscriber growth in recent years, Latin America and the Caribbean still has substantial room for growth. The region will account for 10% of all new subscribers globally out to 2025. Material increases in subscriber numbers will be delivered by major markets including Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, which have penetration levels close to the regional average. By 2025, around three quarters of the region’s population will subscribe to mobile services, closing the gap on the average for developed markets (87%)." (Executive summary)
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"When donors provide assistance to the media sector, they frequently back projects that aim to strengthen the media’s contribution to good governance in some way or another. This kind of funding is consistent with recent declarations made by the international community on the importance of protect
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ing independent media for the sake of democracy and development. Yet, in the bigger picture, donors still only commit a tiny fraction to this sector and appear to be responding slowly, if at all, to the unique challenges of press freedom in the digital age. Media assistance represented on average just 0.3 percent of total official development aid (ODA) between 2010 and 2015. Donor flows to media are small, but are holding steady. China is an increasingly active player in terms of global media aid flows, although its interventions are largely focused on developing infrastructure and take the form of loans rather than development grants." (Key findings)
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"Corrupt individuals have proven very adept at finding ways to get around formal constraints, which is why grassroots and bottom-up approaches to fighting corruption tend to be more sustainable in the long run than isolated institutional and legal reform. Often, well-intentioned laws are poorly enfo
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rced and institutions lack the “teeth” to make anticorruption efforts truly effective. Civil society and media are essential in applying pressure and keeping governments honest and accountable. Freedom of association, or the ability of people to form groups and influence public policy, is vital to anti-corruption. CSOs play a key role in denouncing violations of rights or speaking out against breaches of law. Similarly, a free and independent media serves an important function in investigating and reporting incidences of corruption. The voices of both civil society and journalists put a spotlight on bad actors and can help trigger action by law enforcement and the court system." (Page 1)
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"In low- and middle-income countries women are 10% less likely than men to own a mobile phone. Over 1.2 billion women do not use mobile internet. There is a significant gender gap in mobile usage - particularly for more transformational services. Women in South Asia are 26% less likely to own a mobi
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le than men and 70% less likely to use mobile internet. Cost is the greatest barrier to both mobile ownership and to mobile internet use. Other key barriers, often felt more strongly by women than men, include lack of perceived relevance, safety and security-related issues and low digital literacy and literacy. Women are less aware of mobile internet compared with men." (Key findings)
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"In 2016, there were more than 7.3 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions worldwide. Globally, 3.5 billion people were using the Internet, of which 2.5 billion were from developing countries. Mobile-broadband subscriptions have risen constantly to reach 3.6 billion, while the number of fixed-broadban
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d subscriptions reached more than 84 million during the same period. The impacts of ICTs cross all sectors. Research has shown that investment in information and communication technologies is associated with such economic benefits as higher productivity, lower costs, new economic opportunities, job creation, innovation, and increased trade. ICTs also help provide better services in health and education, and strengthen social cohesion. The Little Data Book on Information and Communication Technology 2018 illustrates the progress of this revolution for 217 economies around the world. It provides comparable statistics on the sector for 2010 and 2016 across a range of indicators, enabling readers to readily compare economies. This book includes indicators covering the economic and social context, the structure of the information and communication technology sector, sector efficiency and capacity, and sector performance related to access, usage, quality, affordability, trade, and applications." (Preface, page v)
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"Undécimo número de El libro en cifras, que apareció por primera vez en junio de 2012, con un objetivo: retratar en cifras la situación del libro, la lectura, las bibliotecas y el derecho de autor en Iberoamérica. Desde entonces, dos veces al año, este boletín ha venido ofreciendo informes so
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bre el registro de títulos con isbn en la región, bien concentrándose en un área geográfica específica, o bien brindando actualizaciones a partir de los datos disponibles más recientes. A esta mirada al registro de títulos, se han sumado reseñas de estudios que en el Cerlalc encontramos de interés, cuyos resultados y conclusiones glosamos y contextualizamos para los lectores iberoamericanos. Así se ha configurado el perfil de esta publicación, que tomada en conjunto permitiría constatar en qué ámbitos específicos del ecosistema del libro ha crecido, durante este cinco años, el interés por realizar mediciones, censos, encuestas, etc., y en cuáles persisten todavía enormes vacíos. Esta entrega ofrece un primer vistazo al registro de títulos con ISBN en América Latina en 2016. El hecho más sobresaliente es la disminución, por segundo año consecutivo, en el total de títulos que se dieron de alta en las agencias nacionales: pasó de 196.450 títulos en 2015 a 189.857 en 2016. Tras más de una década de constante crecimiento, que alcanzó su cota más alta en 2014, se produce una reversión de la tendencia. Conviene, sin embargo, ser cautos antes de apresurar conclusiones, pues, a pesar de la caída, el de 2016 es el tercer registro más alto de los últimos diez años." (Editorial)
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"In this Ericsson Mobility Report, we continue to describe the evolution towards the Networked Society. Between 2015 and 2021, the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to increase at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent, making up close to 16 billion of the total forecast 28 billion
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connected devices in 2021." (Page 3) "The number of mobile subscriptions exceeds the population in many countries. This is largely due to inactive subscriptions, multiple device ownership or optimization of subscriptions for different types of calls. This means the number of subscribers is lower than the number of subscriptions. Today there are around 5 billion subscribers compared to 7.4 billion subscriptions." (Page 5)
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"The global expansion of the Internet is frequently associated with increased government transparency, political rights, and democracy. However, this assumption depends on marginalized groups getting access in the first place. Here we document a strong and persistent political bias in the allocation
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of Internet coverage across ethnic groups worldwide. Using estimates of Internet penetration obtained through network measurements, we show that politically excluded groups suffer from significantly lower Internet penetration rates compared with those in power, an effect that cannot be explained by economic or geographic factors. Our findings underline one of the central impediments to “liberation technology,” which is that governments still play a key role in the allocation of the Internet and can, intentionally or not, sabotage its liberating effects." (Abstract)
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"This report contains the collected, examined, and produced information on the fundamental characteristics of the media and communication industries, whenever possible, in the MENA region as a whole. It typically includes 14 countries from Mauritania on the Atlantic Ocean to Oman on the Arab Gulf. F
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ive MENA countries have been selected for more detailed information: Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In probing the media landscape, we examine large and small countries from North Africa and the Gulf; some that are quite stable, some more turbulent; media-rich and media-poor with different regimes and degrees of media regulation. So, this report finally complements our surveys of the media audience with a close and systematic look at the media content offering, its production, and distribution. This report consists of sections for each individual medium as traditionally defined: television, film, radio, magazines, newspapers, and recorded music. With the ongoing (but not total) migration of traditional media to digital platforms, digital has a section of its own." (www.mideastmedia.org/industry/2016/about/#s68)
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"Based on data collected from 97 countries through the UIS 2014 Survey on Feature Film Statistics, the following observations on diversity can be made: In 2012, the number of feature films greatly increased throughout the world, and the following year a new production record was hit: 7,610 movies. H
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owever, the sustained growth of global production during the 2005-2013 period has not undermined the weight of the main production countries: India, the United States, China, Japan and a set of Western European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain. This finding, in the attempt to analyse the diversity of sources, reveals a high degree of concentration of production in the economic superpowers and in some of the most heavily-populated countries of the world. A special case in point is India, the country with the second-largest population, and the number-one filmmaking country, which is experiencing a major growth in production. India produced 1,041 movies in 2005 to 1,724 movies in 2013. The number of feature films produced in 2013, mostly with digital technology and at multiple sites, represented over one-fifth of worldwide production[...]" (Conclusion, page 35)
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"This report provides an overview of a decade of killings of journalists, media workers and social media producers, between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2015. The extent of the risks faced by those exercising their right to express opinions and disseminate information is demonstrated by the figure
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of 827 killings recorded by UNESCO over ten years. To this, one needs to add the numerous other violations endured by journalists, which include kidnappings, arbitrary detention, torture, intimidation and harassment, both offline and online, and seizure or destruction of material. Overcoming all these threats is needed for measuring progress on the Sustainable Development Goal Target 16.10 on ensuring public access to information and protecting fundamental freedoms within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This Report is focused exclusively on the worst violations, i.e. the killings of journalists, in line with the IPDC Council’s 2008 Decision on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, which was reinforced by subsequent decisions in 2010, 2012, and 2014." (Executive summary)
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"This annual report presents a global and regional overview of the latest developments regarding information and communication technologies (ICTs), based on internationally comparable data and agreed methodologies. It aims to stimulate the ICT policy debate in ITU Member States by providing an objec
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tive assessment of how countries have performed in the field of ICT and by highlighting areas that need further improvement. One of the core features of the Report is the ICT Development Index (IDI). This year’s results show that nearly all of the 175 countries covered by the index improved their IDI values between 2015 and 2016. During the same period, stronger improvements have been made on ICT use than access, mainly as a result of strong growth in mobile-broadband uptake globally. This has allowed an increasing number of people, in particular from the developing world, to join the information society and benefit from the many services and applications provided through the Internet. This year, for the first time, the Report also shows countries’ rankings according to their improvement in IDI value. The results show strong improvements in performance throughout the world; a number of middleincome developing countries in particular are reaping the benefits of more liberalized and competitive ICT markets that encourage innovation and ICT uptake across all sectors. Despite these encouraging developments, we need to focus on the countries that are among the least connected in the world. Urgent action is required to address this persistent digital divide if we want to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For example, the Report shows that in some low-income countries, between 20 and 40 per cent of people still do not own a mobile phone and that the gender gap in mobile phone ownership is substantially higher." (Foreword)
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"In total, a yearly average of EUR 2.53 billion went to the 214 funds in a sample including 33 countries (Albania and Russia could not be tracked for this indicator) between 2010 and 2014 (a proportioned average of 196.2 funds a year, since not all the funds tracked existed over the entire period).
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The three main sources of income in Europe at the national and sub-national levels combined were contributions from the national/federal government (32%) followed by levies on broadcasters (31%) and contributions from regional government (13%). However, when outlying France is excluded from the calculation, the breakdown of the share of income by type of source is much more representative of the reality at the pan-European level, with contributions from the national or federal governments accounting for 53% of the total available resources. Taxes and levies reflected a steady downward trend in 2011, barely compensated until 2013 by the contributions from the national/federal governments and the surge in contributions from sub-national (regional, community and local) governments. Moreover, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Spain and Switzerland were the countries in which sub-national funds accounted for a larger share of the total income." (Executive summary, page 11)
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